Gettysburg: The Delaplaine 2019 Long Weekend Guide

Summary

A complete guide for everything you need to experience a great Long Weekend in Gettysburg, where in 1863 the greatest battle of the Civil War was fought.

“My husband is a fanatic about visiting Civil War battlefields. We’d used the Delaplaine guides when visiting Miami and Washington, and found this one to be as helpful as the others.” ---Darleen S., Nashville

You'll save a lot of time using this concise guide.

=Lodgings (throughout the area) variously priced

=Fine & budget restaurants, more than enough listings to give you a sense of the variety to be found.

=Principal attractions -- don't waste your precious time on the lesser ones. We've done all the work for you.

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Gettysburg - Andrew Delaplaine

I’ve always thought it ironic that the famous battle fought here in 1863 that determined the fate of the Civil War was waged over the three days of July 1-3, ending just before our Independence Day.

So close did the Confederates come to winning when Pickett’s Charge breached the Union line on Cemetery Ridge that if they had not been repulsed, the Confederates could easily have called the following day, July 4, their own Independence Day. It’s not for nothing that this point in the battle is called the high-water mark of the Confederacy.

General Lee’s army retreated the following day back into Virginia. Though the awful war would go on for two more years and see countless more dead, this was the turning point.

A few months after the battle, a military cemetery was dedicated here. A famous speaker, Edward Everett, delivered a long-winded two-hour oration before President Lincoln delivered his slightly more famous address. In fact, Everett is only known now because his (forgotten) speech preceded Lincoln’s, which went into the history books as one of the most eloquent speeches ever made.

Everett’s oration (that ran to 13,607 words) started with this:

"Standing beneath this serene sky, overlooking these broad fields now reposing from